A telephone system, in its most basic form, includes one individual dialing a telephone number assigned to another individual. With such a system, there is a one-to-one relationship between the dialed number and the destination. Time, however, has increased the sophistication of these systems as well as the relationships between a caller and the individual to be called. As an added complexity, the number of devices associated with any individual is no longer limited to one device.
Call routing services provided within many telephone systems allow these devices to be interconnected. Call routing systems have nevertheless resulted in unintended consequences. When a user forwards their calls from their home to a cell phone, for example, calls can be erroneously forwarded even though some calls were intended for their home. Call routing decisions in routing systems are handled by static routing tables in a carrier or private branch exchange. U.S. Pat. No. 6,148,074 to Miloslaysky et al. has been devised to update these routing tables using computer telephony integration controls. Other solutions use presence based concepts, such as an agent login, to update routing tables. These solutions are persistent, and the changes to the routing table remain fixed until a similar event occurs to cause the route to be removed or updated.
The most basic example of call routing decisions would be Call Forward Always which provides a private branch exchange or public switched telephone network extension with the ability to forward calls to another destination device. A problem arises, however, when the destination device again forwards the number back to the original phone. Because this is blocked in private branch exchanges and carrier environments as it is considered a forwarding loop, it simply cannot be done. A console attendant can be placed in the middle and tasked with answering and redirecting calls. In this scenario, calls are billed as soon as they are answered.
As a result, there is a need for providing call features that overcome the challenges provided above. The present application addresses these issues encountered in a call routing system and provides other, related advantages.